Back to Colours page
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Above and below, two striking examples of the coat change during the teenage stage. Calvin was born jet black and white, like all typical black Beardie pups. At the top is a picture of him at 3 months old. The pictures on the left show him at 14 months old. Note also how fuzzy he his! On the right are pictures of him at 3 years old. |
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Here's another example of a black puppy growing up. Mallory is shown as a 3 month old, then as a 16 month old, and finally as a 5 year old. |
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And now for the browns: |
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Here are two photos of Tailor. At left he's pictured at just 4 weeks, and at right he's an older pup of 7 months. It doesn't take long for them to change dramatically in appearance! Tailor is a 'black tri' - black and white with tan points (you can just barely see slight tan markings above his eyes in the 4 week photo). |
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| Often when people think of Beardies they picture in their mind the 'classic' look - a grey or black dog with a full white collar, white chest, legs, muzzle, and blaze. No doubt this look is very attractive, but Beardies come in a variety of colours and markings. Besides the basic colours of black, brown, blue, and fawn, which I've mentioned before, markings can be flashy or plain (a lot of white or just a little), tan points or markings can occur (these Beardies are called tricolours or tris), and then there are the 'mismarks', a term for Beardies which have too much white, or have white in the wrong places, according to the breed standard. Mismarks may be undesirable in the show ring, but the term should not be considered negative in any other way as they make just as good pets as their 'properly marked' counterparts. | |
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At left and below are examples of quite plainly marked Beardie pups with very little white (left is a black pup, below is a blue pup). Although as adults they might not be quite as eyecatching to some as a flashy marked dog, these markings are equally correct in the show ring. |
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Here is an example of a strong tricolour puppy. Tan markings can occur with all 4 colours, but are most noticeable when they occur on a black pup. Usually these markings will fade as the coat lightens, and often as an adult it's difficult to determine that the dog is a tricolour as the tan markings often have almost disappeared. This puppy had particularly strong tan markings as a youngster, which explains his name - "Tanner"! The tan markings only appear in specific places - on the cheeks, above the eyes, under the tail, and on the legs where the body colour meets the white. A tricolour pup may have tan markings in all or only some of these places, but the most common place to have them is under the tail. |
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| Above and below are examples
of mismarks. The dog above (shown as a pup at left and as an adult at
right) is a 'body mismark', where the body is predominantly white but has
patches or spots of colour. This is usually what is meant when a breeder
says there is a 'white puppy' in a litter. According to the breed
standard, white should not occur on the body behind the shoulder, or on
the rear legs above the hocks (CKC standard).
The puppy below is what is termed a 'head mismark'. According to the breed standard, white should not surround the eye, so although his left eye is properly surrounded by colour, the white surrounding his right eye makes him a mismark. Since the genes that control body markings are separate from those that control head markings, it's typical to have a body mismark with a normally marked head, or a head mismark with a normally marked body. |
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This picture shows 2 pups that are 'body mismarks' or 'white pups'. One is white with brown, the other white with black. As is common, both have normally marked heads. The 3rd puppy in the picture is a blue puppy, the first blue we had produced! Blues can range in colour from a dusty grey to a dark mousy grey like this girl. |
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